July 6, 2020

The “Better Call Saul” Cast Is Raising COVID Relief, Making Music, Painting, and Growing Gardens

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You’ll be pleased to know that your favorite Better Call Saul actors livestreamed from their homes a few days ago, and it was a total joy (as each of them is). Giancarlo Esposito, Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Tony Dalton, Michael Mando, and Patrick Fabian chatted in support of COVID-19 fundraising by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the screen actors guild’s support wing, to help the wider community with medical bills, rent, and other essentials.

Giancarlo is starting a podcast while growing radish and lettuce. He waters them every day (with razor-sharp precision). Rhea is brushing off her paint brushes after 20 years. Patrick adopted a dog. Michael recorded his first song (“My first love has always been music”). Actors who play criminal moonlighters and crime-adjacent “good people” are people too. Journalist Daniel Fienberg did a nice job moderating the chat. If you missed it, here you go, and more info on COVID-19 relief efforts is here. Jonathan Banks was missed; he was busy practicing his stink eye while debugging gas caps.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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